Welcome to the Institute of Oral History (IOH) at UTEP. We were established by Dr. John H. McNeely as part of the Department of History in 1972. Our mission is to preserve “the history of the region adjacent to the Rio Grande both in the United States and in Mexico." In the past four decades we have built the largest border-related oral history collection in the United States. Our holdings include over 1500 interviews and more than 20,000 pages of transcript. In these oral histories you will find often very personal stories of living on the border as well as descriptions of great historical events,including revolutions, wars, and immigration.Researchers have turned to the IOH for sources for over forty years,producing monographs on the Mexican Revolution, El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, Smeltertown,immigration, nationalism, and many more topics. In the years to come, many more books will emerge from the IOH’s rich collection.

Copies of the oral history tapes, transcripts, indexes, and summaries are housed in the Special Collections Department, 6th floor of the UTEP Library. Oral histories are also accessible through UTEP’s Digital Commons at http://digitalcommons.utep.edu/oral_history/, a searchable site.